Retrieving bills

To request a bill, locate the catalogue record for the appropriate time period. Select the Request this button. The call slip will display. Type in the details of the bill number and parliamentary session date and submit your request.

If you don't know the date, request a CAC pass from the Main Reading Room, so you can browse the Controlled Access Collection.

Acts

A Bill which has received Royal Assent becomes an Act and is published online.

From the glossary

'Ping-pong' refers to the to and fro of amendments to Bills between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Tellers are the Members who count the votes in the House of Commons and the House of Lords during a division (vote). There are four tellers, two from each side of the House, who are usually also whips. Once the division (voting) is over the tellers announce the results to the House of Commons. In the House of Lords, the teller from the winning side informs the person on the Woolsack who then announces the results to the House.

Find out about Whips, the Woolsack and more in the UK Parliament website Glossary

What is a bill?

A bill is a proposal for a new law which is debated by Parliament. There are separate sets of bills for both the Houses of Commons and Lords. Once passed by both Houses, the bill is given Royal Assent and becomes an Act.

An online guide showing the passage of a Bill through Parliament can be found on UK Parliament website.

Motion

A Motion is a proposal for action put forward in the House of Commons or House of Lords for consideration, debate and decision. A motion cannot become a law but it can lead to the development of a bill (proposed law).

Speech by Mr Henniker Heaton (Canterbury), in rising to move a Resolution in favour of universal International Penny Postage; includes this extract: 'in respect of the postal communication of this country with our Colonies and with foreign nations, there are new and distinct advantages to be secured, provided always, that the service is cheap, rapid, and trustworthy. I assert that it is, however, wanting in the first of these qualifications. And I further assert that the distinct advantages to which I have referred as attainable are, to a large extent, sacrificed. These are, first, the promotion of cousinly feeling with the millions of Englishmen dwelling in our Colonies...I may pretend to speak with some degree of knowledge respecting one of the greatest, most prosperous, and, I may be permitted to add, most loyal of the British Colonies—Australia. To that country a large proportion of the more intelligent and deserving emigrants annually go from "the old country" '